Projo Offbeat Blog

Some 20,000 fishing-happy Rhode Islanders will rush to ponds and streams tomorrow morning, hoping to catch a rainbow, brook or brown trout on Opening Day of trout-fishing season.

And in Pittsburgh, Pa., another group of fishermen, inmates at a county jail, could be trolling for a different kind of catch: marijuana and cigarettes.

Here's the first few graphs from a story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that also found its way onto the Associated Press's Strange wire.

"Inmates use the outdoor recreation areas at the Allegheny County Jail to shoot hoops, play handball or do calisthenics. A few enterprising types at the Downtown riverfront facility have even taken up a new pastime: fishing.

"But their version of the sport requires a great deal of preparation work and nets a very different catch.

"Several prisoners on the Monongahela River side of the 16-story facility have been spotted casting lines out the recreation room air slats and trolling for contraband outside the jail.

"A fishing conspirator arrives at a pre-arranged time and place outside the jail and ties the goods to the line. The successful angler typically reels in a small stash of tobacco or marijuana, jail officials said."

Why should they have to give up their favorite hobbies just because they're in jail?

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